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  • 5 months ago
The Christopher Columbus statue in Port of Spain has been removed, a move that Shabaka Kambon of the Caribbean Freedom Project says has been long overdue.

He says it is now time to educate the public and reject the misleading narrative of Columbus and other colonialists as heroes.

Nicole M Romany reports.
Transcript
00:00Director of the Caribbean Freedom Project, Shabaka Kambon, has been advocating for the statue's removal since 2016.
00:09He explains that what the Caribbean Freedom Project is doing reflects a global movement
00:14where victims of colonial violence are finally speaking out and rejecting the narratives imposed on them in the past.
00:22So a lot of people have been taught in Toronto and Tobago to view their past through this lens.
00:28Columbus is a hero. He was a great explorer and a navigator.
00:33And, you know, there wasn't much evil that he did.
00:36And, of course, even if he did do some evil, it was for the benefit of us all.
00:40That's the imperialist story. That's rubbish.
00:44Kambon believes the space should now be used to honour indigenous resistance or our indigenous heritage.
00:51He says his team worked closely with the First Peoples to develop the idea.
00:57Kambon also weighs in on the removal of the three ships historically associated with Christopher Columbus
01:04on the National Coat of Arms by the previous government.
01:07In the Caribbean Freedom Project, we are willing to work with everybody to ensure that people come on board.
01:12We were very disappointed, to be honest, even though we applauded Dr. Rowley for his historic removal of the three ships from the coat of arms,
01:21which, of course, made us into kind of a laughing stock across the world as we celebrated genocide on the most important national symbol.
01:30But we were disappointed that he didn't see it necessary to couple that removal with some form of education.
01:42Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News.
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